Wolverhampton care home rated 'inadequate' for the second time

A Wolverhampton care home has been stamped as inadequate by inspectors and will be kept in special measures to ensure the safety of residents.

Ashley Court Care, a care home providing support to old people, young people and people living with dementia, was subject to an assessment to find out whether improvements had been made following a previous assessment in November 2025.

The latest assessment in July this year, carried out by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), found the home was in breach of six legal regulations regarding people’s safe care and treatment, staffing, dignity and respect, need for consent and the overall management of the service.

Greg Rielly, CQC deputy director of adult social care, said: “We found examples where the home hadn’t properly planned people’s care around their needs. One person had experienced repeated falls from their bed, but staff couldn’t show us that the equipment meant to alert them had worked when this happened.

“Another person needed regular repositioning to protect their skin, but records showed long gaps between checks.

“We were also concerned that staff didn’t consistently log some incidents on the service’s incident reporting system, including seizures and bruising. This meant the home couldn’t always spot patterns or reduce the risk of these incidents happening again,” said the director.

There are also ongoing concerns relating to the management of catheter care, hydration monitoring, modified diets, medicines management and infection prevention control.

Staff were also found to not always store, dispose of or account for medicines accurately, increasing the risk of mistakes. Alongside this the home’s care records sometimes gave conflicting information about people’s dietary needs, which put people at risk of receiving food that wasn’t suitable or safe for them.

Greg added: “Feedback from relatives was mixed. Some told us staff were brilliant and that their loved ones received good care, while others said they struggled to get information about their family member’s care or felt leaders hadn’t followed up on these concerns.

“We’ve told leaders where they must make rapid and widespread improvements, what will happen if they don’t and we’ll continue to monitor the home closely.”

The CQC encourages people to give feedback via their website: https://www.cqc.org.uk/give-feedback-on-care.

A spokesperson for Ashley Court Care Ltd said: “Since our previous inspection by the CQC earlier this year, we have taken significant steps to improve the quality of care we deliver to our residents, which were noted by inspectors in their latest visit.

“In addition, residents, families and staff spoke positively about the service to CQC inspectors during the second visit.

“We are therefore disappointed with the CQC’s new rating. As we have said previously, we strongly believe a single-word rating does not reflect the standard of care we deliver for our residents, and we welcome the planned reforms to the way the CQC inspects care homes.

“We are committed to continuously improving the care we provide to residents at Ashley Court and we continue to work with all key parties to ensure the right levels of care are delivered.”